8 posts tagged “christmas”

Happy New Year! I've been a bit tardy on this blog, though with good reason - Wheelman has gobbled up my free-time like some kind of pilled-up workaholic. Thankfully the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel and we're finishing up with a lot of things. It's nice to get a sense of closure though it's a bit sad - there's always something strange about releasing something you've worked on for so long into the big, bad wilds and seeing it fend for itself. Needless to say that I've had a lot of fun working on the game as well as learnt a lot about the structure of the studio of a large game project. It was quite daunting and overwhelming to begin with, but now I think I've gotten into the groove and become part of the system too.

I do think that I can affect stuff through the simple process of communicating - during my time in the industry, I've noted the lack of communication can lead to some terrifying outcomes, so I often chat to co-workers about the game, send out feedback e-mails and the like. I also find that I'm more of a workaholic than ever before. It's strange - when I was lounging around playing Fallout 3 (scarily excellent game, by the way) during the extended Christmas break, I was getting slowly more and more bored of it all. I needed some kind of motivation with my time. It's also because it's the end of the year and it feels right to laze about scoffing chocolates and not getting up to much. I beat myself up about not being productive for myself rather than working on Wheelman. Now the New Year is upon me, I'm now starting to ramp myself up for some productive art-type stuff. I still have late-nighters but soon they will become a thing of the past and I can concentrate on my own arty passions like drawing huge paintings of cyborg lasses and....

The Cult of Karl video! Above is my first YouTube upload and it's a good one - the finished animatic for the video! See that pic at the top of the post? I did that today and it's a kind of "proof of concept" about how the video is going to look. I've already uploaded the animatic on my YouTube page - where I'm also starting to collate playlists of amazing animated (and non-animated!) music videos. My partner in crime (and the awesome writer of The Cult of Karl tune), Chris Merritt, has plugged the video and it's now managed to grab 1,000 views. So many views for my modest video! I think that both Chris and myself are benefitting from this exposure so it's definitely a great thing to do.

Now comes the hard part - working on the finished thing. It's great that I have a framework to build on top of in Flash now, though I am always weary of Flash as my extended experience working with it on Wheelman has given me the knowledge that it's a horrendously buggy piece of crap. I mean, there's things you can do in Flash which are, well, Flash, but they can't be exported in video format - which means I might have to cheat and use FRAPS to capture a running Flash file. It sucks, yep, but so does Flash at times. I'm wondering if Flash CS4 has solved all of its wonderous issues. Still, the prospect of getting a finished music video is very exciting indeed and could hopefully lead to bigger things for me during my spare time!

Oh, plug time - Official Wheelman website! It's up and there's lots of goodness to learn and glean from what I've been up to for these two years. We've been getting some bits and pieces in the print magazines, though not nearly enough coverage as we could get. Hopefully nearer launch things will gear up and sort themselves out.

This is a relatively short blog post for me, though this is due to the fact I've been busy again today doing work-type stuff, but (most importantly) being industrious and loving what I do. I'll keep these blog posts more regular and less like novels for the New Year. I do have some nifty resolutions too, one of which involves working less though only because I couldn't have worked any more last year..!

So with that, I will leave you as I venture to bed with dreams of Broccoflowers. Yep, they exist.

Nightnight!  

I remember when the word "crunch" was a word which I associated with tasty breakfast treats. It's biscuits. It's the soothing sound of a booted foot flattening virginal snow on a cold December morning. Now the word has a much more sinister meaning. It's tightening of our belts. It's spending less. It's bolting down the hatches for a shitstorm which is the doing of greedy bankers who appear to have no morals for the harm they've caused on the newly-unemployed and those who put faith in the banking framework which our civilization now appears to be balancing on.

I turn on the news and see hundreds of billions of dollars spat out into the ether - not even George W would even think of spending so much on heavy ordinance generously sprinkled on the yet-to-be-liberated countries out there. Credit crunch. It's the phrase which will be in our collective brains for generations to come and could be the undoing of the entire planet. Supermarkets appear to be capitalizing on this by actively using the word "crunch" in their advertising and wheeling out unbelievable deals which we cannot resist.

To be honest, ever since I bought a flat (and my older brother reminded me of this terrible "mistake" I made given the current climate), I've been living like a bit of a pauper. I've not had a chance to buy things to populate the flat and call it my own. The same painted walls with which the seller left this place remain as they were with the ashen ghost-shadows of picture frames left for me to imagine "what if...". I have plans for this place, but plans like that require time and money - two things I'm in need of. That's a lie actually - my bank account is recovering nicely, though I guess I'm a bit freaked out to spend my monthly paycheck on the things which will make this place special. I had a defining thought of going crazy and painting a huge mural in my living room as a sign of rebellion towards all those landlords who caused me grief in the past and stopped me from decorating those inviting always-white walls in something more hopeful.

An Ikea catalogue plops through my letterbox and I can't help but be memorized by the cheap-but-stylish furniture which adorns each page accompanied by the hipster family grinning like Swedish monkeys with not a care in the world. "Credit crunch? Pfft!" they could gibber from their gurning mouths as they recline and admire their new sofas. I need bookcases though. Bookcases can be used to display the swag which I've invisibly dragged with me from property to property. To be honest, I really don't give two hoots about the credit crunch. This is my home. I love the fact that I know I won't be kicked out or given notice by an over-zealous landlord, The first thing I will do when I get some spare time and courage to spend a little is to paint that bloody salmon pink hallway. What colour? Any bloody colour other than salmon pink.

I visited home for the first time in an age last week - I got a conditional holiday which I thankfully earned through the usual prerequisite of hard work on Wheelman - more of that in a short while. I missed the train travel. It's a contrast to the insta-travel miracle of flying from locale to locale. You appreciate the journey more on a train. I got stuck into the book I bought from the car boot sale the last time I was home - Evil Spirits by Cliff Goodwin, or the life story of Oliver Reed told with a lot of factual enthusiasm. I think I'm on a bit of a biography kick at the moment as I'm reading through the Russell Brand book when I get a chance too. Proper books. The very notion of the "e-book" fills me with luddite fear, although ironically I love my gadgets. Some things shouldn't be changed for the future... I can't imagine traditional books running out of battery power.

I mentioned that train travel was missed, though I didn't miss the Merseytravel-branded train journey from Liverpool back to home - even though Liverpool is the European City of Culture for 2008, Merseytravel still has that same oppressive feeling it ever did. I'm not sure why this is the case - I do remember the travels to Liverpool when I was a teenager were always punctuated with sweet-throwing Scouse teenagers or pisshead tramps. I think it's a lot better now they have hulking big security guards strolling down the carriages. I'm not sure which is worse. Still, I made it back home in one piece and took my usual stroll through Market Street to see what's changed. One thing which never changes though is the Pick House. In some ways, this is a good thing - I feel safe and unstressed by the thirteen cats my Mum still hold dear; the open log fire which is more a necessity and a remnant of the past rather than a conscious design decision... and the horrors that await me in the bathroom.

Mum is strange at times. If something breaks like, oooh, I dunno - the water boiler? Well, she'll consider this as an instant money saving. "I'll be saving money on gas now!" she would no doubt exclaim in her frugal braincase. This means that there's no central heating and no hot water. If I wanted hot water to wash, I'd have to heat up a huge pan of it on our stove and then cart it into the bathroom trying to avoid any curious cats getting under my feet and causing an accident flavoured by severe burns. As well as this, the toilet no longer flushes. In another twist of Victorian nonsense, flushing requires filling up a bucket of water and pouring the contents into the toilet bowl. If you get the speed right, it almost sounds like the toilet flushes like it's intended to do! I also noted that the cold water tap was constantly flowing to "relieve pressure from the next door neighbours who recently had central heating installed". I'm not sure if this is a viable excuse, but it was a scary flashback to a time when we did actually lived an impoverished lifestyle and our cold water tap (we only had cold water in those days too...) was constantly on.

I do enjoy coming home after a break from working in NewcastleGateshead, but for the love of Christ - why aren't these things sorted? I now make sure I don't take my shower for granted. The fact I can flush a toilet at will without filling a bucket or the miracle of hot water coming from my taps without waiting five minutes... my family appears to be in some kind of strange timewarp which doesn't feel like reverting any time soon. Mum seriously suggested I book a shower at my big sister's gaff - how weird is that? "Uncle Steve is in the bathroom, wait until he's done!". No, I can't impose in such a bizarre way. It's the only thing I dread. If I'm lucky enough to get time off to visit them at Christmas, I might consider a B&B option for the fact that there will be a proper bathroom waiting for me. I did the usual stuff when I was there though - went to the Car Boot Sale with my big brother, Ant, and picked up a Billy Connolly VHS for Mum and a truly terrible DVD called Alien vs Hunter inspired by, well... what do you think? I've not seen it yet. I'm expecting greatly bad things. I think the trailer below has confirmed my best and worst fears...

I spent one day going on a long walk around the varied locales of West Wirral including the beach I used to be taken down to with other family members - that was our holiday time, for it was the only thing we could realistically afford. I popped over to West Kirby and half-considered walking out to one of the nearby islands, although the thought of ruining my shoes with mud and sand put me off this prospect. I ended up checking out my old school where I spent a good deal of my formative years being bullied by people I could only describe as lamentable fuckers. Calday Grange Grammar School had old elements still in place, but a lot of it had changed somewhat. I skirted around the place from a safe distance to avoid a curious security guard and noted the lush expanse of green had been violated with many ugly squash courts. It got worse when I walked back - an entire (and huge) playground had apparantly been sold off and now sat a bunch of over-priced houses. I hate that. It's happened a few times to me - Withens Lane College where I studied Graphic Design on terribly slow Mac Classics no longer exists and that's all housing too. I could go back even further and tell you that my old Primary School is now.. yep. Houses. Thankfully memories can't be knocked down and built over, but it's a sad inditement when school grounds are turfed over for rich footballers to live on top of.

Actually, some of my worst memories were linked to that playground. I was always the goalie in football - always picked last. The joyless sting of a football slamming into my face and catapulting my spectacles into the air. One of the worst memories with that place involved a school Sports Day. What I tell you now is absolute truth and what I had to put up with when I was part of that place - I was taking part in a 400m running race along with a line-up of hateful bastards. The thing is that in those days I was quite a kick-ass runner - I guess I had plenty of practice running away from trouble - and when the race started, I was confident to the point that on the home stretch I was leading the race. Now this is the absolutely surreal and bat-shit crazy thing - many, many people in the crowd were not happy about this and proceeded to make their feelings known with plenty of booing and shouting. This was a mob of sheep who behaved in the same way everyone else did, and because of this I unsurprisingly lost confidence, ended up going over into another lane and being disqualified - much to the amusement and satisfaction of the crowds.

Let me just take this opportunity to say I've changed my mind - I'm glad they bulldozed that fucking playground. Maybe that moment in time is now someone's lounge. I'm glad.

I returned back home and bumped into Mum, relieving her of overweight shopping bags full of price-slashed bargains. I think it's one of the few perks she has these days - and I empathised with her as I'm also partial to a bit of bargain-hunting in supermarkets. We both ended up bumping into Nan - who I was glad to see looked a lot better than the last time I saw her. I tried not to think of her as some kind of Bond villain sitting in her back garden facing the other way on a bright red mobility scooter. She noted I looked like Uncle Colin with my beard and I promised her that I'd make it to her 100th birthday party - she's currently 98 and she has that wonderful trait that all our family own - tenacity. It got me through that school and it keeps me going. I think this is also the reason why there is no hot water in the Pick House.

Back in NewcastleGateshead, I appreciated the break from the hectic work schedule of Wheelman. We've got a submission deadline soon and the game is taking leaps and bounds - it's very exciting because there's a lot of fine-tuning and improvements which take shape with constant build updates. I'm currently going through UI elements with a fine-toothed comb, so there's optimisations to be undertaken, maps to be updated and polish to be added. It does feel like we're coming to the end of the game and it's good to know that we've come a very, very long way from the early days. I do know that these next few months are going to be quite crazy, but I've been crunching (there's that word again...) like a trooper for a year now and there are no qualms with working those extra hours. I do miss my "me" time though - I really need to start producing artwork again which is my own, though getting back from the studio means I've got a few hours to do what I need to do before I hit the hay. I'm envious of those on my DeviantArt friends list who produce so much because they have the time to do these things. As I've mentioned before, this has been the longest I've worked on any game during my 8-9 year career in the games industry.

I have just finished work on the animatic for Chris Merritt's Cult of Karl video though - you can grab it here (Flash file 20.6Mb). The next step is to flesh out the animatic with finished vector-based work, which needs I'll need to start producing character model sheets on Illustrator and import them over. One thing I've learnt about using Flash CS3 for the video is this - it's a buggy piece of crap which needs fixing. I feel a sense of anger that Adobe don't fix their shit - what the heck do their programmers get up to? It still amazes me that Flash doesn't even have parenting or IK functions - how the hell do those 2D character animators put up with it? I can name some terrifying bugs off the top of my head, but the fact I use Flash in our UI along with Scaleform means I can spot these bugs and realise that Flash isn't all it's cracked up to be. While I'm on a rant - iTunes. Someone has created a wonderful thing called Genius in the new iTunes, which can cross-reference music that sounds like the music you're currently listening to and in turn you can discover brand new music. I approve of this, though I don't approve of the "pfft" sound which can be heard whenever Genius actually does anything. "No problem, Steve! You can turn it off in the options, can't you?". Nope. Apple make great products but seem to tie them up to shitty software, which in turn does those aforementioned products a disservice.

The strange thing is that someone sent me over a link to the new Adobe CS4 launch and there's a lot to like - especially since they've fixed Flash to the point it can scale keyframes over time in the same way After Effects does, has its own 3D engine (along with Photoshop...!) and also - YES - IK in animation rigs. All I need now is a sack of cash.

In other news, I've bought the new Mighty Boosh book - The Mighty Book of Boosh - and it's a wonderful thing to behold. Lots of beautiful imagery in the shape of lush photography and some incredible hand-drawn typography treatments of the Boosh Boys' crimps. This is why it would be a shame for real books to be phased out by crummy virtua-books. I definitely recommend this book for anyone and - yep - makes the perfect gift for Christmas! Check out that link to the Amazon page to check out a "Look Inside" preview - you know I tell nothing but truth!

I've also discovered through the magic of T61, a bearded musician by the name of Benji Hughes. He's got a recent album out called Love Extreme and it's quite a handful - 25 tracks with a sound which is akin to Beck/Eels/The Flaming Lips but with some electro-inspired intervals and a lot of harmony thrown in for good measure. I need to see this chap live if only to admire his vast beard and exquiste taste in sunglasses.

I'm excited for Winter - already the transition to Autumn is giving me a warm feeling in my heart. Scattered leaves and cooling breezes make me happier and the possibility of a snow-filled Christmas once again enters my mind. You know, I think life is a lot easier when you realise a lot of the stuff out there is designed to try and bring you down. Why isn't there a news channel which broadcasts only the good news stories? It's very easy to be affected by all the horrific news out there.

Maybe ignorance is bliss. I'd rather be a happy idiot than a fully-clued up genius.

Well, it's almost as if my landlord has telepathy - he called me into a meeting room during lunch at work and he casually mentioned he was giving me two months notice to move out of here so he could turn this room into a dining room. I wasn't that fussed, but I'm happy that I've been told this because it's the kick in the arse I need. I've also been thinking more positively now since that - so I've been busy sorting bits and pieces out today. I boxed up my ancient Xbox to trade in at the weekend (with the games too possibly) so I don't have it lounging about like the big fat American console it is. Besides, the 360 kind of negates the need to have an Xbox. The Gamecube could go the same way too due to my Wii ownership... it feels weird but I'm rather excited about this. (Speaking of which - Yahtzee's drunk wrong juice if his recent review of Super Mario Galaxy is anything to go by). (Also I got my Wii plastic jackets! So squishy!).

The Thing Is...

I've got no clue about mortgages or first-time buying of a dwelling. I need to start asking about for advice regarding this because I think I've been renting for a bit too long. It's been the easy option, though I think I like it enough here to start bedding down with a proper place of my own. When I had a place of my own in Mold, it was the wrong place to have a place of my own. The people there were basically inbred pissheads who loved fighting and throwing projectiles at my windows. Such a happy place! Seriously, avoid it. You may think it's a quaint Welsh market town during the day but the night draws in and the streets empty ominously. It's kind of like being in your own horror film... this is even more outlined by the fact the buses are all shite and a minute more there is a minute too long. So I'm fed up of all this housesharing in that sometimes this internet connection isn't 100% fantastic. I need a place with a proper TV aerial. I need space to stretch about. Most importantly - I need to be able to make breakfast in just my undies. I am but a man of simple pleasures.

A Truly Wonderful Post-Christmas Treat!

I love Consolevania. I love VideoGaiden too - the BBC-broadcast spin off. They recently broadcast their Christmas Special and it is truly a fine piece of work - probably their best yet. There's some special guests plus some very funny portions of the show (a clip from Series 6 of a certain show comes to mind), but you can be the judge - unless the BBC are up to their stingy old tricks and US viewers can't sample the goods... (Just to remind myself - they still have their Advent Calendar online).

Almost time for bed, so just one more video-related find which I was quite chuffed to see. Radiohead have recently released the "physical manifestation" of their In Rainbows album and to celebrate, they've put a lengthy live performance of the album interspersed with crazy video blurbs up on YouTube which I will now share with you lucky people -

Stop Press!

Computer update... I've finally found out why this PC isn't fun even though I tried my best to get the thing working properly. Ready? HP make fucking godawful wireless mice and keyboards. There's the reason why this sucks so much. It's kind of stupid to think I need to get my hands on another keyboard and mouse and not use the one bundled, but I'd rather do this than rant at their Indian call centre. Grr.

The notion of celebration on New Years Eve (Is it New Year's? Apostrophe confusion has gripped the many...) is an old and tired one for me. Maybe it's because I'm old and tired. I've been party to many frustrating New Year Celebrations - one of which I will never forget. It happened in The Krazy House in Liverpool and one hilarious female reveller thought it would be funny to steal the glasses from my face and disappear into the throng. I was seething and (even worse) pissed so I spent a lot of time shouting at blurry strangers. I got my glasses back but they were scratched to buggery. I rarely get lucky with people on New Year too. You'd think that would be the best time to play tonsil hockey, but alas. Nope. I've had little luck in that respect. Fireworks also lose their appeal after you've seen them for the first... I dunno... ten times? So sod it. I'm staying in.

Party Pooper!

Yep. Even my headings pour scorn on my decision to stay in, but I'll be slowly drinking while watching the terrible television schedules and/or drunkenly increasing my Gamerscore through online Xbox Live antics. The service has recently been up and down and Xbox Live frontman Major Nelson (aka Larry Hyrb) has tried to calm down a lot of angry people who have received Xbox 360 consoles for Christmas and discovered that they can't play online, although the problem is a lot more than that - the fact that the console needs to be online to do certain things. When the service goes down, people piss and moan - although they have a right to if they've paid for the service. I've not noticed that much because I don't normally play online with randoms because it can be a scary process. I remember a long session of Uno where a lot of the players were half-naked men in darkened rooms. I know of this because they all owned Xbox Live Vision cameras. It's quite something to actually know who you're playing with. Still, I'll see if I can pluck up the courage to go online tonight.

365 Update!

Well, one of my resolutions is to get 365 finished - it's all well and good to have all 365 pieces of artwork to hand but I spent last night arranging them into folders. I need to scan in a load more and track down what pieces of artwork were done on what date. I'm going to be using CreateSpace to get the book published - I used blurb and although they did a great job with the printing of my 365Lite! book for my Mum as a Christmas pressie, CreateSpace offers a lot more than blurb - including the acceptance of .pdf files (meaning InDesign!), your own ISBN number and - because the company is owned by Amazon - the book will be sold through their website! I'm also wondering about connecting the book to charity so profits raised will go to good causes. I ran many miles for Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support and I'm thinking I can raise money for them without all that painful training stuff. As way of an apology, here's a sneaky peek at a piece of 365 artwork never seen anywhere else -

365 Preview

I'm looking forward to getting everything arranged. One of the lovely things about Vista is that with the large icons, it'll display a sexy large icon with a preview image of what's in that folder - this'll prove invaluable for seeing what gaps are left in what months and tracking down that artwork. While on the subject of "Good Things About Vista" - the tabbed folder navigation is pretty awesome too and helped me cut through the monotony of arranging images in various folders. Actually, it feels a lot like when I was younger and I filled out sticker albums. There are gaps which will slowly get closed off. I'm actually very excited by it all - it'll show a snapshot of my year as an artist. There were times when it felt like a chore, but they were few.

Get Me Back To Work!

Honestly... I'm fed up of being holed up here with no work to go to. "You must be mad!" I hear you shout. Nope. Work kept me busy and industrious. Anyone who's been in a state of depression will understand the importance of this. When I was unemployed, it did no good to me and was a factor in my second Trip To The Abyss Albeit In A Different Coloured Submarine. I was thinking about getting my job at Midway and the interview I had with them was such an incredible thing - they were friendly, warm and generous in their comments. The previous interviews I had with other companies were a different matter. Shall I name names? One interview was wonderously confused by the interviewers changing the job role halfway through the interview thus making my carefully-collated portfolio pretty redundant. Another interview almost felt like a bear trap - like they wanted me to fail, slip up or make a wrong move. I think in this industry there's sometimes a feeling that some people are piss-takers. I've worked with a few in my career who have basically blagged their way into the job and they've been instrumental in ruining games. It's a shame, but there you go. I'm glad I'm in a studio where (mostly) everyone has an enthusiasm and a feeling they don't want to produce a turd of a game.

Avoiding The Brown Stuff

Wheelman is always in my thoughts. I guess it can't be helped when I've been working on it this long... there's still obstacles to vault over and negotiate although I'm determined to do a good job. One thing about working for a company which practically saved your life is that you don't take the piss - I'm not exaggerating either. I was quite close to something horrible and I was pulled away from that. I looked at the Midway site last night and was freaked out by the forums and the general concensus on the company's image. It is frustrating in a way - I was very lucky to see Stranglehold's progress on our company twiki and when it eventually became a physical entity on shelves, I was proud and happy to see the game's lifecycle. The guys in Chicago worked crazy hours to get the game produced, and it shows. I was even lucky to thank one of the designers for producing the Museum Level - which I really, really enjoyed. So you have Stranglehold which I consider to be a very un-Midway title. There's been un-Midway titles in the past like Psi-Ops and The Suffering which have been bold in their direction although the sales figures painted a different picture. Talk to people who played both games though and they will state how much they enjoyed them.

On The Other Hand...

...there's Cruis'n.

Yep, that's not a PSOne title. It's on the Wii and sometimes it frustrates me that stuff like this comes out when Midway are trying to "not do an Atari" and end up in the shit. Sadly it's more commercially viable for them to release the game as is instead of spending more time working on it. All the rep built up by Stranglehold gets put back... the same happened with Hour of Victory too - it could have had more time to be tinkered with, but it came out and received a panning. Recently Blacksite also suffered the same fate - not enough time to make it the game it could have been. I was gutted when co-op was dropped and when I got my hands on a copy, there are moments when it truly shines (the first appearance of the spire hitting that shopping plaza in slow motion comes to mind) but there are also moments when there's literally nothing happening. The driving bits are frustrating at first, but you soon get kinda used to them. Harvey Smith did comment about development on Blacksite being "fucked" in an obvious attempt to get kicked out by Midway so he can work on Deus Ex 3 - but when you have worked in the industry for as long as I have, you realise that all development is fucked to a certain degree. I think it was a shame that Blacksite appeared so close to the release of Call of Duty 4 - which is a simply astounding assault on the senses. It does a lot of things very well indeed and really immerses you.

Wheelman T-shirt!

What I'm Trying To Say...

I'm a gamer. I've played games for a long time on a variety of systems and I love the immersion. Getting into the industry was great for me as a gamer because I got a kick (and still do) out of the creative processes behind the games which have given me so much enjoyment over the years. The mistake people make with companies like Midway, Rockstar, Ubisoft and EA (to name a few) is that their output is from one studio when it's actually a collective from many different studios. Midway Newcastle is the only UK-based Midway studio and I think that's going to be hugely important in the games we produce. You'll find Wheelman will have a different feel and look to the US-based Midway output and that's something I'm glad to be part of. There's not been much press of the game though January will change this as Midway's Gamers Day will give gamers the chance to play the game for the first time. I chatted to one of my superiors about how worried I was that Wheelman wasn't in many of the "What to look out for in 2008" articles in the gaming press, but he assured me that Midway didn't want to shoot their load too soon with Wheelman coverage. There's a method to this madness...

Secret Sauce.

There's things we're doing with Wheelman which are quite, quite insane. For a start, we're using the Unreal Engine to power the game and the engine in question wasn't really designed for high-speed action/driving games. Thankfully we have a team of programmers who have come up with scary miracles. The game is looking gorgeous and I really want to show people the game in action too. We have gameplay elements which are quite fresh and different to the norm.  We have a soundtrack which fooled me into thinking someone was watching The Bourne Supremacy on DVD for research purposes - they were actually playing a build of the game..! We don't have a huge tacky graphic with the word "Nitrous!" pop on screen and block your view (although if it does come up as a suggestion, I will shout it down from the highest mountain). Most importantly - we have a team of people who are mostly gamers and know what's great and what's shite. Things have been designed, re-designed and tested. I like the fact there are outspoken and vocal people on the team who aren't treating the job as a way to pay off their mortgages. In short - Wheelman isn't even close to Cruis'n. Be assured of that. To get you in the spirit of Wheelman, check out the FMV trailer which has been doing the rounds for some time. I'm hopeful that gameplay footage will soon be forthcoming and people can start judging for themselves... (This is a YEAR OLD..!)

Finally...

Well, it's been something of an update (and a long time coming) but I hope you all had a great Christmas (or whatever festiveness you happen to celebrate around this time of year). Christmas at home was bliss - almost no arguments (although there was a minor squabble over sausages) and it was good to see everyone again. I also hope you have a great New Year although it's already technically 2008 on the other side of the planet. My resolutions? I have quite a few, but I will take a leaf out of Tracey Emin's book regarding them. I'm treating them more as rules than resolutions which I will stick to. I think as you get older that re- rules become more and more important to the way you live your life. When you're a carefree hipster (you know - the type that ruined the third season of The Mighty Boosh), you don't care much for them. You're more interested in kissing random strangers when the bells chime and have no fear of you losing your spectacles as you have perfect eyesight anyway. Grrrr. I'll leave you with a clip of when the Boosh set its adventures in fantastical places and not some grim area of Camden...

Yep, it's Christmas. Lovely, lovely Christmas! As I get older, the allure of presents fades but the main reason for Christmas - the Christmas Dinner! A plate full of wholesome food is a world away from the crap I usually shovel into my gaping maw. My older brother used to be a commish chef and he is normally the guy who helps craft the meal with an impressive gusto. He hates to be thanked though - I feel sorry for him because ever since Dad got carted away, he became the surrogate Dad of the family trying to keep Mum's boyfriend out of the house. He deserves good things to happen to him though as with many things in life, good things don't always happen to good people. Still, I'm umming and arring whether or not I should go home tomorrow morning or Friday morning. I love travelling on trains though not when they're full of people so I need to judge it. I could be really gimpy and not sleep tonight, zip off in the very (very) early morning and be there. Then again I could stick around here tomorrow and spend all day lazing about and doing the things I've missed from all the overwork I've done.

Shindig!

The Midway Christmas Shindig was a surprisingly civilised affair - one which took place in Aspers Casino in Newcastle. It's located in a very strange location called The Gate which is basically a shopping mall where the malls are either nightclubs or pubs. You do get a very bizarre mix of people and atmosphere when you visit there - classy (ahem) ladies and groups of have-a-go white shirts drifting from concrete opening to concrete opening. We had to queue to get in and there was ten minutes of getting membership to actually get into the casino, but once in there we ended up in a place called Lady O's which was a downstairs closed bar. It was pretty classy to say the least and a lot of co-workers were smartened up for the occasion. I came all smartened up too...

Suited And Booted!

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Well, this is a first. I type this on a replacement keyboard with a replacement mouse from the guys at PC World. No ordinary guys though - The Tech Guys! They did what HP couldn't do, and I'm pretty impressed that this new keyboard apparently works better than the grouchy old one. So that's one more problem sorted. The next problem is the mouse is still sticking to various things on Internet Explorer - it jerks about at times and I'm not sure if it's due to the excessive hard drive access when Vista starts up (although I'm told this is all down to Vista making the hard drive more streamlined and sexy, which it does automatically) or it's the fact I need to grab the latest Nvidia hotfixes for this computer as well as the latest drivers - although trying to find the specific drivers for my graphics card is a bit of a giggle at the best of times. It feels like I'm slowly making progress with getting Vista doing the things I want it to do.

XP SP3?

Cryptic acronym? Well, not really. Windows XP will soon get it's next Service Pack - SP3. Insiders in Microsoft's HQ in Redmond have cited they've managed to get a speed boost for XP, whereas Vista's still as slow as molasses even with the forthcoming SP1 (currently in Beta). The article which I read this also mentioned that Vista's biggest rival is... XP. This is a surprise for me, as I couldn't find a copy of XP for love nor money anywhere once Vista was released. It'll be nice to get a shiny updated XP for my old computer, but I don't miss that horrible fan hiss one bit. Enough of the techyness...

365 Is Go!

I've bitten the bullet and started to design the actual 365 book - where I spent this year and a bit of last year creating a piece of artwork a day - and I'm using blurb's BookSmart software again though this time actually using it the way I should have used it for the trial book I produced for my Mum for Christmas. I'm changing individual page layouts, adding notation for reminders of artwork I still have to hunt down and generally feeling an awesome sense of accomplishment of actually getting off my arse and doing it. I think I can move onto other art projects once this book is finished as I haven't done any artwork in an age - either been busy with work-type stuff or playing videogames. I think I've silently promised myself that I won't play any more videogames until the first pass of 365's layout is finished. I was pretty dismissive of BookSmart to begin with, but it's great as long as you're careful and you know what to do beforehand. When the book is finished and I've ordered a copy for myself, I'll sling you the link to the book so you can perhaps check out my mad skillz.

Drink And Draw Christmas Bash!

I'm really looking forward to Saturday - it's the Drink and Draw Christmas Bash! It's taking place in a backroom at the rather masculine Sports Cafe in Newcastle and I'm excited because a lot of the Midway Newcastle Concept posse will be going including Mack Chater, Corlen Kruger, Peter Thompson and my good self. I think this time round I'll stick to shots... if you haven't heard of Drink and Draw, shame on you! It's basically where you go to a pub with a sketchbook and a drawing implement, and you get drunk as you draw stuff. Simple. The exciting stuff comes as you can vibe off each other with collaborative pieces. We'll be drinking and drawing along with the Miami Chapter of Drink and Draw when they start their session over in the States too. I still think that the Sports Cafe is a bit meathead-filled - Trillian's would be a better bet with its darkened corners and goth presence - but the actual room we draw is vast and has a huge projection screen playing geeky movies.

Cold!

I thought I shook my cold, but it's back. I was coughing via my chest today a bit too much, and I'm getting a blocked nose again. I always thought I was quite immune to the bugs which went round, but I don't think I'm that immune. I've got a holiday on Friday which I'm putting to good use - grabbing Christmas decorations and wrapping paper to make this bedsit a bit more festive as well as wrapping the presents I've already bought for just about everyone. It seems weird that I've already done my Christmas shopping, but I'll leave the wrapping of presents until December sometime. Work has generously given us two days of holiday for free - so I'll use those days to come home early for Christmas. My Mum doesn't know yet because I've not managed to get through on my phone. The Pick Household are rather averse to any outside contact even when I use my super-special secret ring.

Soup!

My local supermarket has started to stock my beloved Butternut Squash soup again! The Soup King will be pleased. Soup and crumpets is the perfect combination. Never will I go back to using mere bread for soup dipping. My older brother is a god when it comes to making soup and it's great we have veggies growing in our front garden. He also doesn't like presents, though sod it - I've got him one for Christmas. He'll be kind enough to provide us with a lovingly-cooked Christmas Dinner so it's the very least I can do. I look forward to coming home especially for Christmas - it'll be great to hug Mum again and see what antics she's been up to. 

For Old Time's Sake...

Something for Ronda, because I know she's a bit disillusioned with life at the moment and I think the world of her enough to show her beautifully-animated bunnies in a prison cell.

Well, it looks like I've got just about all my Christmas shopping sorted out..! I know, I've taken the fun out of queues and panic, but sod it. Heck, if I need to be ultra-festive then I can wrap up the pressies in December and then cart them home to my friends and family. It's always, always good to come home for Christmas. The family home has always been a rock - a port which will never go away if we need a hand or somewhere to stay. Mum's very proud of the fact the house is hers and all paid for - she is trying to tempt me into the ways of getting a mortgage as I've rented most of my older life away. I don't agree with the "pissing money up a wall" attitude some people have when rent is concerned. One day someone's going to step into my life and change it for the better and maybe a mortgage might be part of the plan of eternal bliss. Who knows..?

My Love Of NewcastleGateshead's Quayside

If there's one thing I love it's travelling to the Quayside and relaxing while munching a semi-warm pastie-based treat from Greggs. There's something spectacular about seeing one of my all-time favourite buildings - The Sage - framed with an early Autumnal sunset and the Tyne Bridge in the background. Don't believe me?

Quayside

I love living up here - walking about town while shopping felt a lot less frantic than, say, London. NewcastleGateshead has got a lot of heart and soul which you wouldn't find in some places and I like that a lot. I like the fact that Newcastle appears larger than the people who frequent it. People say I'm crazy and mad, but I also love living on the "wrong side of the river" - or Gateshead, in other words. It wouldn't be the same if I lived in Newcastle. The journey is half the fun, right? The Quayside has a lot going for it though - the aforementioned Sage, the fantastic Millennium Bridge which can tilt 45 degrees to let boats through - and the Baltic Mill.

Am I In London?

Nope. The Baltic does give you that impression though. It's a contemporary modern art gallery and sometimes you get some pretty stunning pieces of artwork. One of the first pieces I saw when I first visited was an ingenious thing - imagine a coffee table with a load of fruit on it. The fruit had motors connected to them and those motors had little saw blades which were being used to saw through the legs of the table! Pretty swish, you say? Yep. The Baltic does sometimes sway a bit too much to pretention - the recent(ish) Spank The Monkey exhibition was full of incredible urban art though sadly was ruined somewhat by the ironic way they filled an entire floor with artwork and a skate ramp full of skaters. The ramp was cordoned off from the public, so you couldn't scrutinise the artwork. Pah. I did catch a section of the Baltic I hadn't seen before full of Murakami work -

Murakami

Mmmmmurakami. Lots of prints and stuff to buy, although I need the money. One day I will buy something beautiful and arty, though not on my 2nd day off..! The other Christmas pressie will be an art book - a mini 365 - for my Mum using the wonder of Blurb. If you're an artist who always wanted their work in a nicely-produced book, now's your chance!

Back to Work.

It was nice to be away from work, but lo! I had much catching up to do! Not only that, but it seems that I have a lot more work than actual time left to produce it. So in true games industry style, I may have to put in stupid hours again to get the job done. In some ways, I don't mind the stupid hours although my gut is slowly growing and I need an exercise alternative to running. There's a gym recenly opened which is a stone's throw away from the studio, so I might have to start using it straight after work. The painful fact is that as we head towards our next major milestone, we're running out of time. There's some plus points which I like - the fact that I'm working with a Flash ActionScript wizard who is making our front end extremely flexible and extremely user-friendly to me to tinker with and put lots of icing on. Mmm. Icing.

Crunch!

It is scary though. I've been in many situations in different companies where I can see in the distance the danger heading towards me and I need to take drastic action to minimalise the crunch which will occur. I heard that the developers of Strangehold (Midway Chicago) were in crunch mode for over 8 months. Imagine that - working 14 hour days and nights in the office every day and night to get the job done - although they did a pretty incredible job with some parts of the game (the Museum level was incredible). I am worried about the crunch we'll need to pull to get Wheelman out the door, especially near Christmas. Let's hope it all works out...

One more thing. Need to lose weight? Butterfield's your man!

So today was my first day off in ages. I've been in the studio religiously - I rarely get ill and I've been spending far too much time in the office after hours. My day off though was quite, quite productive - I spent a bit of it in bed and bit more of it getting ready to go out and about to buy some Christmas pressies. Before that, I ventured into Sainsbury's to buy myself a bottle of my favourite Innocent drink and noticed they were looking a bit... chilly?

Woolly-hatted Innocents!

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I'm very happy about that photo because I took that photo today on my Samsung U600 (which I'm slowly getting used to), uploaded it to this IQ771 via Bluetooth and then edited the photo in GIMP before uploading it to Vox. See? Sometimes technology does work and when it does - it's a wonderous thing. I digress...

So What's With The Knitted Mini-hats, Steve?

Weeeeell Innocent Drinks are quite the company - they're not like a faceless corporation and they enjoy making me giggle with their labels. This is all part of The Big Knit which is a drive to raise money for Age Concern which is a charity in the UK which helps the older generation get by. If you want to know more, then please check out the video below -

They hope to raise £200,000 for Age Concern as every woolly-hatted drink which is sold will generate 50p for the charity. I wish them well!

Brrrr!

Yep, it's getting colder. I love the transition towards Winter with the promise of Christmas although these days Christmas doesn't seem as lavish as when I was a kid. I think it's got something to do with not insulting certain religions although I think that's a lousy excuse as those religions were about when I was younger and enjoyed Christmas in all its lavishness. As for the Christmas shop, there's still more to get although not that much - I plan to have bought everything as well as wrapped it all up by the end of this month, although...

Mum's Christmas Pressie!

So what to get for Mum? Well, last year I gave her a framed photo of me finishing the Great North Run. I can do the same this year as well as something pretty different - the 365 book I've mentioned a few times in blog posts can also be a possible present. Mum hasn't seen much of my artwork properly and it's a shame - so the motivational factor for this is a good one as well as the fact that the trial version of InDesign will last me 30 days, unless... I buy it. Saying that, I was going to buy Photoshop until I discovered that GIMP is pretty bloody good for the price of free...!